Connecting the Dots

Souped-Up Food Production: The Next Big Thing?

Back in the 1940s, American psychologist Abraham Maslow famously classified human needs into a hierarchy, often shown as a pyramid.

At the foundation are our physiological needs: air, water, food, etc. Only when these needs are met can we reach upward to more and more refined stages of material, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual fulfillment.

You could say, the very existence of civilization depends on the stability of the bottom layer. It’s thus no accident that a huge part of the economy exists to fill these basic needs.

Photo: Getty Images

Even smart people can forget this. One person who doesn’t forget—and has used it to accomplish amazing things—is President Donald Trump.

Presidential Endorsement

Last week at the White House, President Trump and his economic advisors met with a group of manufacturing company executives. They discussed how to create jobs and promote exports.

I’m not making this up. President Trump’s first thought, on meeting the head of Campbell Soup, was to tell everyone he likes their soup.

Note also, the president did not respond to Merck’s leader with “Good pills,” or to the Ford CEO with “Good cars.” But Campbell got a “Good soup.”

Thinking of Maslow’s hierarchy, this makes perfect sense.

We know food is a basic human need. Soup is basic food. Trump knew this instinctively. He won the White House by convincing those on the bottom levels of Maslow’s pyramid that he could raise them up.

Coincidence? I think not.

Photo: Getty Images

Consumers Want Better

Campbell Soup, the company, probably appreciated the president’s kind words. Last year, its share price finally surpassed a previous all-time high set in 1998. Soup is a tough business, apparently.

The global soup market shrank in 2009 and again in 2010. “Recent growth,” quipped a recent Quartz article, has been lukewarm at best.” In both 2012 and 2013, the market traded sideways, with growth of less than 1%.

Canned soup gives you the opposite of both—so Campbell Soup has had to rework its packaging and invent new, higher-quality products.

The food-quality trend goes beyond soup, too.

As the demand for organic grains has skyrocketed, food companies are filling the gap with imports from as far away as Turkey, Ukraine, and India. The foreign competition has slashed organic-corn prices by 30% and organic-soybean prices by 20%—a fact US farmers are not happy about.

Imported food (or imported anything, really) is not what the Trump administration wants to see. Furthermore, suspicions abound that some of the imported grain isn’t really “organic” as the US government defines it.

Yet another problem: American fruit and vegetable farms depend highly on immigrant labor, much of which is now under pressure to leave the country. It’s not clear if there are enough legal US residents (who are willing to do the work) to replace them.

Looks like an economic conundrum.

Consumers want higher-quality food, but we can’t get the components without importing them, which the government wants to discourage. Labor shortages don’t help. How do we square this circle?

Silicon Valley sees an opportunity.

Photo: Getty Images

LED Salad Bowl

Last August, when John Mauldin kindly gave me a Thoughts from the Frontline guest appearance, I wrote about the way LED lighting could enable large-scale indoor farming.

It appears to be getting closer. From the February 13 edition of the Wall Street Journal:

In a renovated warehouse by San Francisco Bay, plastic towers sprouting heads of lettuce, arugula, and herbs rise 20 feet to the ceiling, illuminated by multicolored LED lights that give the room a futuristic feel.

A group of tech entrepreneurs and investors including billionaires Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt are betting this facility, 100 miles north of California’s “salad bowl” produce-farming epicenter, can redefine how vegetables and fruits are grown for local consumption.

If all goes to plan, the 51,000-square-foot warehouse run by startup Plenty United Inc. will yield as much as 3 million pounds of leafy greens each year. In the coming months, the company plans to begin marketing produce bred for local tables rather than shipping durability.

This is a prototype operation, still a long way from being feasible at scale. The article reviews some of the challenges. But if it works, the economic consequences will be staggering.

Right now, our food often travels thousands of miles before it reaches us. Think of all the ship, train, and truck miles it takes to bring fresh produce to every US grocery store and restaurant.

Now imagine if crops could grow in highly automated, energy-efficient local warehouses. We would have better, fresher produce that costs less and is less damaging to the environment.

Meanwhile, other companies are working on lab-grown meats. A cow is essentially a machine that converts corn and water into protein. There might be more efficient ways to do this, or to create substances indistinguishable from actual beef.

This won’t happen tomorrow or next year. But who knows, 10 years from now, indoor farming and meat production could be commonplace.

Economics of Everything

As you can see in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, self-esteem and self-actualization—two things that make us distinctly human and have brought forth art, music, and other forms of culture—can’t exist without the lower levels supporting them.

The ready availability of food is an essential part of allowing us to be fully actualized humans.

Economics is about the ways we manage supply and demand, which means it is really about everything. But it’s first about fulfilling our most basic needs.

The technology-driven switch from subsistence farming to commercial agriculture unfolded over decades. It let people live in cities and enabled the Industrial Revolution, which in time led to all of today’s technology.

The coming change to the way we feed ourselves may be equally significant. It could happen much faster too.

See you at the top,

Patrick Watson

P.S. If you’re reading this because someone shared it with you, click here to get your own free Connecting the Dots subscription. You can also follow me on Twitter: @PatrickW.

Subscribe to Connecting the Dots—and
Get a Glimpse of the Future

Email Address

Your privacy is very important to us. Please review our Privacy Policy.

Senior Economic Analyst Patrick Watson is a master in connecting the dots and finding out where budding trends are leading. Patrick is the editor of Mauldin Economics’ high-yield income letter, Yield Shark, and co-editor of the premium alert service, Macro Growth & Income Alert. You can also follow him on Twitter (@PatrickW) to see his commentary on current events.

Discuss This

Comments

cruisenal@gmail.com

My concern of this farming is the uptake of minerals in the food produced. If not grown in mineral rich soil, how does the fruit or vegetable absorb minerals? We need these for health.

js3835@att.net

March 1, 2017, 10:16 a.m.

Patrick,

You are behind just a little.

The following companies have been shipping containerized system for a few years.

http://verticalharvesthydroponics.com/

http://www.growtainers.com/

http://modularfarms.co/

https://www.freightfarms.com/features

Additionally, Village Farms have been in the hydroponic green house business for several years. I would expect that they would add LED to their systems soon.

http://villagefarms.com/the-difference/greenhouse-grown

I saw somewhere in the past where there was a public company building and selling to several of these, but that was a deep search and I have not been able to replicate it.

jamesrobertson6002@att.net

Feb. 28, 2017, 12:37 p.m.

President Trump probably made the remark he did regarding Campbell Soup because he eats and likes Campbell Soup. I would bet that he didn’t make a remark to CEO of Merck because he doesn’t take Viagra and he didn’t make a remark to the CEO of Ford, because he doesn’t drive a Ford.

Other than that, why make a point about what Trump said to the CEO of Campbell Soup?

You’ve already stated in previous articles that you don’t really like Trump, so why continue the put downs that serve no purpose what so ever?

I would strongly urge you folks to read Trump’s book “The Art of the Deal” so that you will better understand him and what he is going to do.

If you want to go back to the days of Presidents Bush & Obama, then just wait until 2020 and work like to hell to defeat Trump. Once Trump is defeated, the US will quickly become a more Socialistic government, assuming that ISIS or ISIL hasn’t created hell on earth here in the US.

Use of this content, the Mauldin Economics website, and related sites and applications is provided under the Mauldin Economics Terms & Conditions of Use.

Unauthorized Disclosure Prohibited

The information provided in this publication is private, privileged, and confidential information, licensed for your sole individual use as a subscriber. Mauldin Economics reserves all rights to the content of this publication and related materials. Forwarding, copying, disseminating, or distributing this report in whole or in part, including substantial quotation of any portion the publication or any release of specific investment recommendations, is strictly prohibited.
Participation in such activity is grounds for immediate termination of all subscriptions of registered subscribers deemed to be involved at Mauldin Economics’ sole discretion, may violate the copyright laws of the United States, and may subject the violator to legal prosecution. Mauldin Economics reserves the right to monitor the use of this publication without disclosure by any electronic means it deems necessary and may change those means without notice at any time. If you have received this publication and are not the intended subscriber, please contact service@mauldineconomics.com.

Disclaimers

The Mauldin Economics website, Yield Shark, Thoughts from the Frontline, Patrick Cox’s Tech Digest, Outside the Box, Over My Shoulder, World Money Analyst, Street Freak, ETF 20/20, Just One Trade, Transformational Technology Alert, Rational Bear, The 10th Man, Connecting the Dots, This Week in Geopolitics, Stray Reflections, and Conversations are published by Mauldin Economics, LLC. Information contained in such publications is obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but its accuracy cannot be guaranteed. The information contained in such publications is not intended to constitute individual investment advice and is not designed to meet your personal financial situation. The opinions expressed in such publications are those of the publisher and are subject to change without notice. The information in such publications may become outdated and there is no obligation to update any such information. You are advised to discuss with your financial advisers your investment options and whether any investment is suitable for your specific needs prior to making any investments.
John Mauldin, Mauldin Economics, LLC and other entities in which he has an interest, employees, officers, family, and associates may from time to time have positions in the securities or commodities covered in these publications or web site. Corporate policies are in effect that attempt to avoid potential conflicts of interest and resolve conflicts of interest that do arise in a timely fashion.
Mauldin Economics, LLC reserves the right to cancel any subscription at any time, and if it does so it will promptly refund to the subscriber the amount of the subscription payment previously received relating to the remaining subscription period. Cancellation of a subscription may result from any unauthorized use or reproduction or rebroadcast of any Mauldin Economics publication or website, any infringement or misappropriation of Mauldin Economics, LLC’s proprietary rights, or any other reason determined in the sole discretion of Mauldin Economics, LLC.

Affiliate Notice

Mauldin Economics has affiliate agreements in place that may include fee sharing. If you have a website or newsletter and would like to be considered for inclusion in the Mauldin Economics affiliate program, please go to http://affiliates.ggcpublishing.com/. Likewise, from time to time Mauldin Economics may engage in affiliate programs offered by other companies, though corporate policy firmly dictates that such agreements will have no influence on any product or service recommendations, nor alter the pricing that would otherwise be available in absence of such an agreement. As always, it is important that you do your own due diligence before transacting any business with any firm, for any product or service.

By the Way...

If you like connecting the economic dots to make better investment decisions...

Sign up now for Patrick Watson’s free weekly e-letter, Connecting the Dots. Every Tuesday, Patrick comments on one of the budding macro trends that can affect your life and assets. Seemingly unconnected factors can combine to form major events... make sure you see them coming.

If you like connecting the economic dots to make better investment decisions...